


remember your name (it is still the same)

by robin_hoods



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Childhood, Gen, Magical Realism, Psychological Horror, Storytelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-29
Updated: 2013-10-29
Packaged: 2017-12-30 21:11:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1023434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robin_hoods/pseuds/robin_hoods
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“This is a story of one of mine own,” the Drowned God said.</p>
            </blockquote>





	remember your name (it is still the same)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leapylion3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leapylion3/gifts).



> Written for this prompt at the asoiaf kink meme:
> 
> Theon as the Runt from October in the Chair by Neil Gaiman.
> 
> But it might not be as Neil Gaiman-ey as I hoped it would be, considering that I'm, y'know, not Neil Gaiman.
> 
> Morale of the story: if I promise someone I'll write something, I will write it. It just might take me a while.

“This is a story of one of mine own,” the Drowned God said, water trickling softly out of one ear onto the stony floor, his face a sculpture of sand and stone and shells.

“Let's hear it, then!” the Warrior crowed, leaning heavily onto his sword. “We have yet to hear a story of yours that did not end with one of your loyal subjects drowning.” The God had a weathered face, a long scar settling across the bridge of his nose, half of his right ear cut off, and an unruly beard covered his face below the nose.

“Poor man,” was all the Maiden said, her blue eyes cast downwards, her hands clenched together in silent prayer. She was seated next to the Mother, who directed her eyes to the skies above – covered by water as they may.

“All men must die,” the man on the furthest seat from the Drowned God said, cloaked, his face unseen. None of the others in the room paid him much due, however; he did not seem to be part of their circle. The only way his comment went acknowledged was by the low hum of the trees surrounding them, an ocean of green in the Drowned God's watery halls.

“This one has not passed as of yet,” the Drowned God gravely announced. His voice always boomed down here, the sound of a crashing wave reaching the shore and shattering on the cliffs. “He has a long way to go still.”

The Crone lifted her lamp, casting shadows upon her wrinkled face. “Than I shall be his light in the darkness, until he has found his way again.”

“Help shall be offered by us as well,” the Mother said, her face kind and warm. She interlaced her fingers with that of the Father, who huffed his agreement into his beard, and shared a quick look with the Warrior.

“Do go on, my friend,” the Smith said, and then adressed the others in the room. “Though our dear Lord of the Oceans has already shared this man's fate with us, we must remember that it is the journey that matters, not the end result. Haven't we all learned from our mistakes?”

The Warrior frowned but didn't comment. The man sitting next to him squinted slightly at him, then lifted his feet from the floor. “Can someone get rid of the water in here? It's ruining my robes.”

“Ah, the new guy,” the Warrior said, grinning. (“I am not _new_ ,” the man protested.) “I wondered when you would say something. You're a flashy one, aren'tcha?”

“Don't mind him, dear,” the Mother assured the man in red, “he's always like that.” The Warrior snorted.

“I extended my invitation to all of you,” the Drowned God said. “I am very sorry about the state of your robes, but my Halls must always be watery.”

“Perhaps some light shall do you good?” the Crone offered, lifting a sagging eyebrow.

“No, thank you...” the man in the red robes slowly said. “I am the embodiment of light; all I need is to find my chosen one, the wielder of--”

“I believe that's quite enough,” the Father said, as if he were addressing a pair of squabbling children. “Drowned God, please share your story with us. The time we have is short, I do not intend on wasting it.”

“All right,” the Drowned God said, his shoulders shaking as he coughed into a hand. “We all know that all men's journeys end the same. For some, it's early; for others, it is late. Some hope they never have to go, and others believe it won't come quick enough. I have seen young men and old men, men of old age that never learned, and young men wise beyond their years. We all come and go, like the coming and going of the tide. All these men and women are remembered by one thing only: their name.”

With another wracking cough, the Drowned God started his story, his voice slow and calm.

“He has to remember, the young man thinks. He has to. It's important, he knows it is, but he's just barely hanging on by the tips of his fingers, so close to losing what he knows, what he loves, who he is. (But he's a liar, no one remembers him or loves him or cares about who he is.) The rats don't know his name. Neither should he.

That name belonged to someone else, someone without fear, without distrust, without everything _he_ is, has become. (He's lying again. That name is a traitor, a turncloak – a good for nothing son and leader. That name is someone – someone else – and he is nobody.)

“What a gloomy story,” the man in the red robes interrupted. “Don't you know any uplifting ones?”

“It takes time to build a wave, my friend,” the Drowned God said, “but if you wish...” As he thought, one of his eyes rolled into the back of his head.

“Once upon a time, a boy lived on the Iron Islands... He had two older brothers, and one older sister, all of them promising ironmen. Not this boy, though. He wanted to be, more than anything, but his heart was simply not made to carry an iron burden. During the day, he would chase around crabs with a small net, his pant legs rolled up to his knees. Some days, his sister would join him and chase him around in the water, until both of them were wet, and laughing.

Happy days, those were. Somewhat.

Early mornings he could see ships come and go from his window, large vessels fit to carry more men than he could imagine. There, in the harbour, they were building the largest ships he had ever seen. One day, his father left, and his brothers, and his sister said she wanted to go. The three of them, his mother, his sister, and the boy, watched the ships leave from their keep, until they could no longer see them. “They'll be back soon,” their mother told them, her hands on their shoulders. “When they've won their battles, and counted their wins, they'll come back.”

Every day the youngest brother stood by the shore, water and sand curling around his toes while he waited for familiar sails to appear, a golden kraken on a black field.

One day, and it might have been the second one, or the fourth, or the sixth, but one day the boy took a boat and went out to sea. He must have rowed for hours, his arms growing stiff and his hands blistering. The further away he got from the island, the more he heard the water, a strange sort of quiet pressing on his ears. The horizon started to darken, and far away, perhaps on the island, perhaps on the mainland, he saw a fire burning. A tiny flame dancing in the sky.

His father, and brothers. They were there, the boy realised. They were there, and he was here, on a boat, at sea. Startled by the revelation, he began to cry.

How could he ever captain his own ship, his own crew, if he could not even trust himself to go in the right direction? He looked over his shoulder towards the ocean, where the sky that touched the water could not be separated from nearly black ocean. His brothers had once said that if you sailed past the line of the horizon, you would fall off the world. To where, they did not say.

When he turned back around, he accidentally knocked one of the oars into the water, and before he could reach out to grab it, it had already drifted away.

No one knew where he was, and rowing back was no longer an option. He tried, of course, rowing on one side and then the other, but the water simply pulled him back, the tide too strong for him to fight against.. Soon, the island was but a tiny dot in the distance, and all he could hear were small waves hitting the side of the boat. The boy was not sure how long he had lain at the bottom of the boat, but he opened his eyes when a raindrop fell on his forehead, followed by many others. Rain poured down into the boat, and the boy found himself completely drenched within moments.

The ocean, however, did not wait for its own turn, and waves the size of giant monsters raised themselves up around the boat, and the sky darkened above the boy's head. Far away, he saw lights flash in the darkness.

And the youngest brother tightly held on to the sides of the boat, his other oar having disappeared as well. There was water below him, above him, around him, crashing into him and he could taste the salt of the sea on his lips, One giant wave lifted up the tiny boat, higher and higher, and in a single breath the world turned upside down. The boy plunged into the water and could no no longer tell up from down.

When he woke, at last, the floor felt cold beneath his hands, and wet as well – but that might have been because of his dripping hair. In the distance he heard people whisper to each other, their voices like the murmur of water, a trickle bright in the darkness. Two pairs of hands pulled him up underneath his arms, laughing voices accompanying them.

The boy coughed up some water, and they put him back on his feet, where he swayed like a drunken man aboard a moving ship. When he opened his eyes, there stood his brothers in all their glory, clad in armour, adorned with steel, their gazes proud and steadfast.

But the youngest brother saw something was wrong. Their faces were pale, a grey hue amids the blue of their surroundings. Their armour was covered in blood, and when one of the brothers turned his head, the boy saw half of it had disappeared. When they tried to speak, water came out of their mouths, although the boy knew what they might have told him. He nearly tripped over his own feet as he stumbled back, away from their hands when reached out for him again, and he turned to run.

Instead, he bumped into a man, who had been standing right behind him – if you could call him a man, as everything that might make him one had rotted off his face, leaving empty eyesockets and lipless teeth in its wake. The man softly groaned at him, the same protesting noise a ship made while it was assaulted by violent waves.

The boy's eyes and mouth widened in dawning terror, and he fell over. On his hands and knees he crawled away, until he finally found a safe spot underneath a long dining table.

“I recall asking for an uplifting story,” the new man said, having long forgotten about his ruined wet robes. “I don't mean to be rude,” he insisted, “but it is true. His brothers are dead, and it seems so is the boy –”

“I don't think so,” the Mother interrupted. “The Drowned God did say this lad had not passed into the afterlife yet. Isn't that so?”

“That is true,” the Drowned God admitted.

“So, how does it end for the youngest brother?” the Warrior asked, leaning back in his seat. “Can't be too good, considering your beginning.”

“When he came back ashore, he did not speak. His mother's tears fell on top of his head, and the hold his sister had on his hand was too tight to be comfortable. He still remembered water heavy in his lungs, and cold dead fingers prying open his mouth, and coughing, and laughing, and crying.

Strange men, men from the greenlands, men without a drop of iron in their blood, had come to take him from the sea, from his home, from the islands that up until then had been his world.

When he finally returned at last, it was hard to recall what he had loved about this place at all. The sea was the same, and the salt, and the people, yet he was not. He no longer was that same boy, and I no longer recognised him – and I fear he did not know me either.”

There was a long pause after his statement, until the Mother asked. “How did it end?”

“I'm afraid I don't know the ending to this story. Not yet,” the Drowned God admitted. “One day, he will return home, and I will welcome him with open arms. But that time has not come yet. He still has things he needs to do.”

“And what is so important about this boy?” the red robed man asked, frowning

“He remembered his name,” the Drowned God stated, and smiled for the first time that evening.

“How?” the Maiden asked.

“I told him what it was,” he said. “But he already knew.”


End file.
